But love is really more of an interactive process. It's about what we do not just what we feel. It's a verb, not a noun.
Interpretation
Love is an action that requires participation and effort, not just a feeling.
This quote by Bell Hooks emphasizes the importance of action in love. It suggests that love is not merely an emotion to be felt, but rather a set of actions and interactions that define its true essence. Love involves responsibility, engagement, and mutual contribution, highlighting that it is a continuous process rather than a static state.
In practice
This quote can be shared at a wedding to emphasize the commitment involved in marriage.
Privilege is not in and of itself bad; what matters is what we do with privilege. I want to live in a world where all women have access to education, and all women can earn PhDβs, if they so desire. Privilege does not have to be negative, but we have to share our resources and take direction about how to use our privilege in ways that empower those who lack it.
Self-love is the foundation of our loving practice. Without it our other efforts to love fail. Giving ourselves love we provide our inner being with the opportunity to have the unconditional love we may have always longed to receive from someone else.
While privacy strengthens all our bonds, secrecy weakens and damages connection. Lerner points out that we do not usually "know the emotional costs of keeping a secret" until the truth is disclosed. Usually, secrecy involves lying. And lying is always the setting for potential betrayal and violation of trust.
When we only name the problem, when we state complaint without a constructive focus or resolution, we take hope away. In this way critique can become merely an expression of profound cynicism, which then works to sustain dominator culture.
Once you do away with the idea of people as fixed, static entities, then you see that people can change, and there is hope.
I still think it's important for people to have a sharp, ongoing critique of marriage in patriarchal society β because once you marry within a society that remains patriarchal, no matter how alternative you want to be within your unit, there is still a culture outside you that will impose many, many values on you whether you want them to or not.
I have loved to the point of madness; That which is called madness, That which to me, Is the only sensible way to love.
I still believe in peace, love and understanding.
Love was the key to understanding all of the mysteries.
Lightning, your presence from ground to sky, no one knows what becomes of me, when you take me so quickly.
Love is not some complex, mystical abstraction. It is something accessible and human that we learn through our everyday experience, as often at times of failure as in moments of ecstasy.
There is a terrible hunger for love. We all experience that in our lives - the pain, the loneliness. We must have the courage to recognize it. The poor you may have right in your own family. Find them. Love them.
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